Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta

Ugento’s Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta was built in the eighteenth century after the earlier cathedral was destroyed in the 1537 attack on the town. Its Latin-cross plan has a single broad nave, while the neoclassical pronaos added in the nineteenth century gives the façade its present form.

Why it matters

The cathedral is the seat of a diocese documented in 1198. Its rebuilding after the 1537 destruction, together with later additions to the façade and interior, records the changing history of Ugento’s principal church.

What to notice

The façade’s neoclassical pronaos was added under Bishop Francesco Bruni in 1855. Inside, the single nave leads to the transept and presbytery, separated by a polychrome marble balustrade. The furnishings include a wooden choir, a Rococo altar dated 1720, an altar of San Vincenzo from 1832, a canvas of the Assumption and a Last Supper painting. The church’s underground rooms also house the diocesan museum.

Context and history

Construction began in 1718, funded by the bequest of Bishop Antonio Carafa, and the cathedral was consecrated by Bishop Arcangelo Maria Ciccarelli on 30 June 1743. A plaque on the counter-facade gives 1745, a date the parish chronicle identifies as an error. The bell tower followed in 1843; the neoclassical façade was added in 1855. The marble floor dates to 1902, and the presbytery was altered in the twentieth century, including work in 1940–43 and 1976.